As thousands of visitors from around the country pour into Dallas for the opening matches of the 2026 World Cup, a group of faith leaders and immigrant rights organizers are addressing the elephant on the field–the city’s relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The coalition, made up of members from El Movimiento DFW, Clergy League for Emergency Action and Response (CLEAR DFW), North Texas Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and Young Active Labor Leaders (an affiliate group of the Texas AFL-CIO), is specifically concerned with the increased use of the city-owned Dallas Love Field Airport for deportation flights.
A June 1 blog post written by the Rev. Mara Richards Bim, a member of CLEAR DFW, described in detail organizers’ case against the city allowing the ongoing use of Love Field for deportation flights conducted through the private hangar and airline services of Atlantic Aviation. In her post, Bim drew attention to a promotional World Cup countdown ticker on Atlantic’s website, targeted at private aircraft owners looking for a hangar to land in for event festivities. At a press conference hosted by CLEAR DFW on June 10, the Rev. Neil G. Thomas was briefly interrupted by a nearby plane departing overhead from Love Field as he told the crowd that the contradiction of Dallas welcoming an international community to the city while assisting in aggressive deportation quotas of immigrant residents, most of whom have no criminal record, “forces us to ask difficult but necessary questions about who we are as a city and what values we choose to uphold.”
